Wind Turbine Project Report
Intro to
Engineering – 1020-104
Team members:
Chad Goyette
Jay Eddy
Renee Crowley
Starting
Pico Turbine
Building the Improved Turbine
Meeting One – Wrapping coils, cutting plexi, and
building base
Meeting Two – Change in plans, mapping out design,
cutting out new rotor
Meeting Three – Cut rotors smaller, assembled rotor and
connected coils
Meeting Four -
made another design change and trimmed plexi off the
Meeting Five – Began basic wind and voltage testing
Mapping the results in class
Results
– Data collected and graph
Total cost of project
Special thanks
Our
team built and tested 2 original Pico Turbine kits. When one
we thought was the stronger of the two failed due to design flaws and
shoddy materials, we decided to improve upon the original using better
components.
Building of Improved Pico Turbine:
During a meeting after the
11/6 class, we came up with 2 possible concepts for our improved wind
turbine.
One was a Triple Helix Wind
Turbine. It is a lift design, and
therefore it could spin faster than the wind speed.
The other was a Double Helix
design; it caught wind from all directions, and was sturdy enough to endure
high wind speeds. We agreed that this
design would be the way to go.
We agreed to have our first meeting on 11/8 at
Tyco in
MEETING ONE
Our first challenge was to
build the coil base. We decided to use
12 coils in a 3 phase configuration with gave us 4 coils per phase. Each phase was wired together in a star
configuration to maximize voltage output in low wind. To have a total measurable output we
rectified the 3 phases into DC with 6 diodes for ease of data collection. The 4 new Coils were hand wound 200 turns
each with approximately 7 ohms per coil.
Then we cut out the plexiglass to insert the coils and suspend them
between the magnet layers. The magnets
consist of the original 8 picoturbine magnets double stacked on two disks with
four magnets on each disk. The magnets
were backed with a piece of carbon steel to help concentrate the flux lines to
make the most use of the magnets.
MEETING TWO
After careful consideration,
our team decided that our Triple Helix design would have structural issues with
increased wind speed, so we decided to go with a drag based Double helix that
was similar to the original Pico – but better. We continued building the base
while we thought over a new plan.
After a few days debating
the material for the blades, we decided to build them out of fireproof foam.
MEETING THREE
We
cut rotors in half lengthwise to create better wind flow, and the ability to
stagger the blades further apart
MEETING FOUR
After
initial testing, we discovered that the weight of the plexiglass became an
issue. So to compensate, we removed as
much material as possible from the magnet disks; as per our model below.
MEETING FIVE
Finished turbine. Began basic
wind and voltage testing.
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RG = |
30 |
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RL= 0pen |
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RL1= |
200 |
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RL2= |
100 |
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Target Wind |
Low Wind |
Low Wind |
Avg Wind |
Avg Tach |
DVM volts |
DVM Freq |
Avg Tach |
DVM volts |
DVM Freq |
Avg Tach |
DVM volts |
DVM Freq |
DVM (mw) PT1
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DVM (mw) PT2 |
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2.0 |
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4.0 |
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5.0 |
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6.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
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7.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
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8.0 |
8.1 |
8.5 |
8.3 |
58 |
0.52 |
6.90 |
34 |
0.14 |
4.20 |
36 |
0.15 |
5.89 |
0.08 |
0.17 |
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11.0 |
11.0 |
11.3 |
11.2 |
63 |
1.40 |
10.17 |
63 |
0.43 |
9.70 |
60 |
0.36 |
10.70 |
0.81 |
0.99 |
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12.0 |
11.9 |
12.5 |
12.2 |
65 |
1.50 |
10.20 |
70 |
0.51 |
13.00 |
67 |
0.49 |
11.60 |
1.13 |
1.85 |
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14.0 |
13.8 |
14.4 |
14.1 |
82 |
1.92 |
13.30 |
72 |
0.66 |
13.55 |
68 |
0.47 |
11.36 |
1.89 |
1.70 |